


you can't choose what stays and what fades away

by girlsarewolves



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Band-aid Fic, Bittersweet Summer Isles Ending, F/M, Future Fic, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It will not bother her that her gravedigger is in love with another girl, from a noble house, who lost her way and fell prey to lions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can't choose what stays and what fades away

**Author's Note:**

> While I don't actually think Sansa will lose herself in Alayne, sometimes I like to explore the possibility. Also Alayne/Gravedigger is my second favorite ASOIAF ship after SanSan. ;)

* * *

He calls her 'Little Bird' when they're alone.  
  
For the first few months, she asked him to stop. ("I am not a bird," she insists. 'I am not that girl,' a voice in her head whispers.  
  
"Shall I call you Little Wolf then? Little Lady?" he questions. His voice is harsh and deep, and she knows that he is frustrated.) He stubbornly refused.  
  
She quite likes the nickname now. She likes that he calls her 'Little Bird' and sometimes 'Pretty Bird' while the talking, singing bird he bought her for another girl's name day is nothing more than 'Lady.'  
  
In public, he will sometimes call her by her name. He still says it as though it is hard for him to pronounce. There is always slight hesitation that tells her it's a conscious effort to say that name instead of another.  
  
They rarely leave the sanctuary of their new home, though, so she rarely hears it.  
  
'Alayne,' she will think to herself every morning and every night. Just to remember that she was not born with the name 'Bird.' 'My name is Alayne Stone.'  
  
He told her once that she wasn't, tried to insist she was born with another name, to another father, in another place. He tried to convince her, but she proved him wrong with her lips and her hands and her eyes on his face and other places that other girl would never dare.  
  
Alayne thinks that was the first time she ever saw the gravedigger cry.  
  
("Oh, Little Bird, what did he do to you?" he asks but doesn't push her when she never answers. He tells her he'll take her far away, where her father cannot find her. He tells her he'll keep her safe.  
  
Perhaps that is the moment when she begins to love him, when he echoes the dream of another girl's life but doesn't abandon her to the cold.)  
  
He no longer calls her by that other name, or tries to convince her she is that other girl. There are times that he looks at her, and she knows he wants to.  
  
But he calls her 'Little Bird' instead and makes her sing.  
  
Some nights she wonders if they will ever marry. She remembers that he once told her she was a proper lady, highborn, and proper, highborn ladies marry noble, highborn men. They do not lie with dogs.  
  
("But Alayne Clegane sounds silly," she states plainly.  
  
He stares at her, stares through her and sees all the secrets she knows she's keeping and all the ones she no longer remembers. "That wouldn't be your name if you married," he finally says.)  
  
Alayne giggles to herself, face pressed to Sandor's chest while he sleeps, and thinks that 'Alayne Clegane' still sounds silly.  
  
But part of her likes the rhyme of it.  
  
("Do you want to marry?" he asks her a night later. He is slightly drunk even though he has only had a little wine, and she wonders how long it has been since he drank his fill of Dornish sour.  
  
"No," she whispers. Though her voice almost cracks because she is not sure who it is that is balking at the idea of marrying anyone, even him. "I once heard that marriage is not important on the Summer Isles."  
  
That was when their destination was decided on.)  
  
Alayne Stone does want to marry. She wants to marry Sandor Clegane, the gravedigger she met on the Quiet Isle. She wants to introduce herself as 'Alayne Clegane' and laugh a little at her own expense.  
  
They could have little girls and boys one day. She can almost imagine children climbing over their giant of a father, and teaching Lady silly phrases. A dog would be good, too. Or maybe a few.  
  
It would be perfect.  
  
But she knows that the man lying next to her would insist it would all be a lie. A pretty, white lie. To whatever priest or captain they found to marry them. To everyone they ever met. To each other and to themselves.  
  
Alayne has learned that though her lover _will_ lie, he does not like to. She likes that; she hates liars. ("Sansa Stark was a liar," she hisses before he can utter that name again, before he can tell her - again - to quit the act.)  
  
So in the morning she will keep her thoughts of married life to herself.  
  
It will not bother her that he still calls her 'Little Bird' and 'Pretty Bird' and has to struggle to call her Alayne when they are near others. It will not bother her that he stares at her as though he will see that other girl peeking back.  
  
It will not bother her that her gravedigger is in love with another girl, from a noble house, who lost her way and fell prey to lions.  
  
Sandor frowns in his sleep, the first sign of nightmares.  
  
"Shh," she murmurs and gently strokes his cheek. She sings to him, quietly, until his face is relaxed once more. She sings 'Florian and Jonquil', because it is what the other girl would sing if she had a second chance.  
  
In his sleep he calls for her; "Little Bird."


End file.
